


The Great Wide Somewhere

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 18:31:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/612901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, there was a woman who wanted adventure in the great wide somewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great Wide Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> And here's the fic I never thought I would write. I really have to stop saying that aloud.

The ship was leaving a pale, curling wake behind it.

Milah watched the waters foam and spread. 

She was in the Captain’s cabin in the stern of the ship, and the land that had been her home since the time she could crawl was fast fading behind them. 

The cabin was everything she had imagined: brass lamps hung from the ceiling, swinging and creaking softly; a polished oak desk was fixed to the floor, a chair lashed to it, to keep it from skidding away when the ship rolled; even the two benches that nested by the windows were padded in faded red velvet.

Milah’s feet were resting on the edge of the seat she occupied, her arms around her knees.

Everything that had been her life was behind her, and she wasn’t sure if the guilt she felt was because she had abandoned them or because she didn’t feel guilty enough about running away. For all that she had declared Rumpelstiltskin a coward, he had run home to his family. She was the one who had run away from hers. 

It should have felt worse, she thought, watching the colour of the water shade darker as they headed out of the port and to the open sea. She should have been more upset, and yet, all she could feel was a tired, numb relief that she wasn’t trapped in a town where she was treated with contempt for something that wasn’t her doing.

Bae…

That made her shiver. 

She had carried him and given him life, but he was always Rumpelstiltskin’s son. She tried to love him. She tried desperately, but he was so much his father’s child, content with so little, so quiet, and it sometimes felt like trying to love an echo. He would be better with just his father. He would be loved consistently, not with her uncertainty. 

She wasn’t made to be a mother.

The cabin door creaked open, and she didn’t need to look around.

“You can come on deck now, if you like,” Killian said.

“I know,” she murmured, watching out of the window as the town became smaller and smaller in a world that was big and open and ready for her. She blinked hard, then turned with a tentative smile, that vanished almost at once. “I’ll stay here for a little longer.”

Killian looked at her, then closed the door behind him. As much as he swaggered and strutted in front of his crew, when he crossed the room, he walked like a man worried about a woman, not just a pirate. 

“Not regretting it already?” he said, a teasing tone in his voice that did little to hide the concern in his eyes.

“Not at all,” she assured him, as he sat down opposite her. The benches were close enough that their legs tangled, and when he offered her his hand, she took it at once. “I never belonged there, not even when things were going well.”

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles gently. “You’ll do fine here, m’lady,” he said, a wicked grin crossing his mouth. “We’ve been needing a woman’s touch around the place. Cooking, cleaning…”

She kicked him lightly in the shin. “You can stick your canon up your arse if you think I’ve come aboard to be a housewife,” she said, a laugh almost escaping, but it faltered, faded, and she looked back out of the window. “He didn’t even try.”

Killian’s thumb brushed the back of her hand. “He didn’t deserve you, love,” he said. “If someone told me my wife was going to be enslaved and violated…”

Milah held up her free hand, silencing him. “I know,” she whispered. “Rumpel, he was a good man, but he wasn’t a good husband, a brave husband.” She released a shivering breath. “But by the Gods, he was the best father Bae could have wished for.” Her eyes were stinging and she blinked hard. “They’ll be fine, together. They don’t need me.”

“If you wanted to see the lad…” Killian offered.

Milah shook her head. “No,” she said quietly. “Better that they think me gone forever. If they knew, Rumpel would try and call me back.” She looked across at Killian. “He has a way of making me feel I’m in the wrong, like I’m asking too much, that I’m not doing all that I can and should, and I…” She exhaled noisily. “I want to prove him wrong. If he knew, if he tried to persuade me to go back, he would probably succeed.” She squeezed Killian’s hand tightly, her new anchor, steadying her in a new world. “He has a way with words, and I can’t let him talk me back into that miserable life.”

Killian kissed her knuckles again. “In that case,” he said, “we’ll need to find you a new look. Something less Rumpelstiltskin’s wife and more…” He put his head to one side, examining her. “How would you like to be First Mate? You’d have to work up the ranks, but I think you’d be able to do it.”

Milah looked a him. “You’re not just saying that to distract me?”

He shrugged with a cheeky grin. “Maybe a little,” he said, “but that’s not to say it isn’t true.” He leaned across the space between them, bringing his face close to hers. “You said you were ready for adventure, love. Are you ready to work for it?”

She touched his cheek. “I don’t want you to give me special treatment. I want the crew to know I’m not just here to be your piece of skirt.”

“Aren’t you?” He widened his eyes in mock-shock. “Hell, woman! If I knew that, I would have tipped you overboard!”

She swatted his cheek, smiling almost truly. “You’re a big-headed lout, Killian Jones.”

“Mm.” He tilted his head to nuzzle her palm. “That’s what all the ladies say.”

Milah had forgotten what it felt like to blush, but blush she did.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“And left. Right. Parry.”

Milah grimaced as Killian’s sword met hers. “I’m not a man,” she said. “I don’t see why I should fight like one.”

“You have to know what you’ll be fighting against,” he pointed out reasonably, sheathing his blade at his side. “If you don’t learn how a man will use his weapons, then how will you be able to fight him?”

She wrinkled her nose, setting down her own sword. As much as she enjoyed their sparring, the blade was too heavy for her to maintain strength behind her blows. “Can you at least find a swordsmith? I need a blade that doesn’t make my arm feel like it’s about to drop off.”

He sprawled down onto one of the barrels on the deck, grinning. “We’ll be coming into a port soon enough,” he said. “There’s a young lad there with a gift for the blade. Will Turner, as I recall.” He smirked at her. “He’ll make you up something nice and ladylike.”

“You’re asking for a smack in the mouth,” Milah snorted.

“Promise?” Killian asked, grinning. 

She put her hands on her hips. “Only if you’re very good.”

The Captain laughed gleefully, leaping back to his feet. He stalked across the deck towards her, catching her around the middle and pulling her close. “So, are lessons done for today, then, love? Or do you want more?”

There was a clatter as his belt came loose under her hand and his sword landed by his feet. A small dagger was in her other hand and under his chin, and she smirked at him, her eyes dancing in amusement. “I think I’m all right for now, don’t you, Captain?”

He looked down at the dagger. One side of his mouth turned up. “Disarming me, eh?”

“If you tell me you have another weapon down your breeches,” Milah informed him sweetly, “I’ll have that off you as well and toss it overboard.” She dropped a kiss on his lips. “I’m in the nest this afternoon, and you know it.”

His hands slid over her hips and he gave her a backside squeeze. “Then if you’re working so hard, I’ll get myself to the cabin and make myself pretty for when you come down,” he said, wicked promise gleaming in his eyes.

“You can try,” she said, “but some things are beyond hope.”

He laughed and slapped her firmly on the arse. “Get up the mast,” he said. “You’re meant to be working. Can’t disappoint the captain.”

Milah pulled him in for a quick kiss, then scrambled for the nest.

Almost two years aboard, and the crew were getting used to her. Some were still wary, of course. There were too many sea-faring superstitions for them to welcome a woman on board right away, but as the Captain pointed out, she wasn’t any downtrodden little milk-sop.

She could still remember the looks on their faces when she first stepped out of Killian’s cabin, wearing a pair of his leather breeches. It felt almost indecent, the way they clung to her like a second skin, but they made her feel freer. 

Without the restrictions of heavy skirts and shawls and womanly modesty that had been beaten into her by her father, she felt like she was being Milah for their first time, rather than being Westwater’s daughter or Rumpelstiltskin’s wife or Baelfire’s mother. 

She clambered into the crow’s nest, arranging herself in the small space. She didn’t mind it, even if she did wish she could bring up a cushion. Killian had laughed himself sick the first time she suggested that, and asked if she was a delicate little flower that needed to protect it’s dainty bum. She kicked him in the shin and silently climbed the rigging without a cushion.

As much as he’d laughed, he was the one who gently rubbed arnica into her bruises without even asking anything of her afterwards. 

Their men wouldn’t have believed how good their Captain was to her. She certainly didn’t. He never tried to hold her back. If she wanted anything, she wasn’t afraid to ask. Sometimes, he would refuse, but he would always explain why. He never tried to make her feel guilty, if she failed at some lesson or other. He would laugh, because he was a cocky son of a bitch, and in the end, she would laugh too.

They no longer spoke of trying to teach her to use a pistol again. 

It had ended badly. 

Especially for the unfortunate pelican that had been flying directly above her. She still couldn’t work out quite how she had hit it, and Killian insisted it must have been deliberate because no one could shoot a bird and make it crash on their lover accidentally. 

Milah propped her arms on the edge of the nest, looking east. 

They had seen more lands than she had ever known existed. They had crested on waves that were higher than the highest house. They had fought bandits and soldiers and - on one memorable occasion - a possessive mermaid who didn’t want to give them back the silverware for the Captain’s table. 

She still drew sometimes. Not often, it was true, because she didn’t need to anymore. When she did, they were drawings of her adventures, drawings of the places she’d been to and the people she had seen. 

Once, Killian had prodded her into drawing him, and when he grinned smugly about how handsome he was, she made a face and etched a bushy moustache and monocle onto the picture. He sulked for two days.

And sometimes, just sometimes, she would tug out the ragged, much-folded scrap of paper that she kept hidden in her clothing. She didn’t know why she kept the sketch of Baelfire, but some part of her couldn’t bear to be rid of it. 

In the privacy of the nest, she could look at the drawing.

She had never considered returning, but it didn’t change the fact that somewhere in the world, she had a son, a child, born of her own flesh and blood. The sketch was probably not quite accurate, but she had left the original one with her husband and her child. She wondered if he had grown much, or if he spoke any more than he had. 

What would he think, she wondered, if he knew his mama was a pirate? What would he think if she did return and showered him with all the little treasures she had found and gathered? If she returned, would he even remember her at all?

He was better off without her, she knew. Her own father had been a merchant, and always loathed it when winter closed the roads. He made no secret of the fact he hated being closed in at home, whether with his fists or his words. 

Once, she had shouted at Bae, and shaken him. The child had retreated, crying, from her. Surely, it was better to leave the child where he would be safe and loved than to stay and make the child bear the brunt of her misery and loneliness that his father could so wilfully ignore. 

Milah traced the outline of his face. 

He was a good boy. For all that she had nursed and raised him, she could hardly see anything of herself in him. He was brave and quiet and she knew he would grow up to be a good, decent man. 

She folded the drawing away, and turned her attentions to the horizon again.

One day, maybe, some time in the future, when she was too old to be recognised and he was fully grown, their paths might cross again. It was unlikely, but then, three years earlier, she had believed it impossible that she would be free and happy.

Perhaps, one day. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Milah pressed back against the wall, finger to her lips.

Finbar and Red Rover, two of the slighter members of the crew froze.

All three of them were balanced on the narrow ledge that ran around the upper level of the Mayor’s residence. It also happened to be the building that housed the dungeons that Killian was currently closed up in. Not to mention the house that contained the keys to the treasury.

The rest of the crew were in the square below, some in the tavern to keep the townsfolk occupied, while others were feigning various degrees of drunkenness, propping up the front wall of the Mayor’s house. At least two others had taken out the guards.

A light was on in the window ahead of them.

Milah crouched down and led the other two onwards. It was precarious enough if they had light, but it was pitch dark and the moon was masked by cloud. The only reason for the ledge to be there was as a means of escape from fire, and given the choice of burning alive and falling over twenty feet to the courtyard below from a ledge barely six inches deep, it would take a bold soul to make the attempt.

A fragment of stone rattled free, but the sound was lost in the cheerful singing from below.

“How far?” Finbar whispered.

Milah held up two fingers, inching along little by little. 

The Mayor kept the keys to everything in his official chambers. The rooms were protected by bars on the window, but for the past three nights, Red Rover had been up, patiently filing at them. The cabin boy was quick enough and small enough to run along the ledge, but the rest of the robbery was too important to be left in his hands. 

She stopped when she reached the window in question, and whistled softly. The shutters on a building opposite opened. Natan, the biggest, strongest crewman raised a hand in salute. Milah nodded, and he hurled a small leather ball across the ten foot void, trailing a thread with it.

She caught the ball, her heart thundering in her chest, and started drawing on the thread. The thread was tied on to a rope, and Natan gradually fed it across to her. It wove in and out of the lattice of bars easily enough. Finbar kept a hand at her waist to steady her when she swayed, and once the lattice was as much rope as it was metal, she, Finbar and Red Rover retreated several paces.

The light of the lantern in the room with Natan made his muscles sheen as he wrapped his arms in the remainder of the rope and pulled. Milahg averted her face, raising and arm. She could hear Natan grunt with effort, then the screech of metal, the thump of the bars swinging away and against the side of the inn, and the rattle as Natan pulled them into his room and out of sight.

“Good,” she breathed, hardly believing it had worked.

“My turn,” Finbar whispered, as she edged around the window.

It a matter of moments, he had the panel of the window open, and they climbed through the gap, landing lightly on their toes in the Mayor’s chambers. The rooms were dark, and made moreso as Red Rover draped a thick tapestry over the window.

Finbar lit a lantern, now that their presence was hidden.

For all that the room was secure from the outside, once inside, the Mayor seemed to believe that nothing needed to be locked away. A quick search of the desk found the clusters of keys and - better yet - the floor plan of the treasury itself.

Milah flicked through the keys, then unlatched two from the ring. “You get to the treasury,” she whispered. “Get enough for a decent profit, but don’t try and take it all. Make sure the alarm is raised within the half hour.”

Finbar nodded, taking the keys from her, and the plans. He disappeared out of the window, leaving her with Red Rover. 

“You sure this is a good idea?” the boy asked warily.

“Of course not,” she replied, as they took up a hiding place behind the door. “But they’ll hang the Captain at dawn if we don’t, and it’s this or a daring daylight rescue.” She offered a wry smile. “I’m not one for being up in the morning.”

The boy grinned, buoyed by her confidence. 

She tousled his hair.

It was strange, she thought, how much the crew had become her family. Even if it had been one of them, instead of Killian, in the cells, she would have still risked hell and high water to get them back. It wasn’t that she had changed, not really, but it was a case that this was a place she belonged, where she fitted. She didn’t have to pretend to be something she wasn’t: they accepted her for who and what she was. 

The crew were as good as she expected.

Within the half hour, the alarms started ringing, and she heard shouts and yells from the square below.

Naturally, the first thing the Mayor would do, if there was a threat to the treasury, would be to collect the keys, and the moment the plump little man stepped in through the door, she had her sabre at his throat. 

“Good evening,” she murmured. “Sorry to intrude, but you have something of mine and I’d like it back.”

The man went white. “You!”

She grinned. “You’ll notice I’m not alone,” she said. “Rover, here, is my backup. He’s very good with his pistol. If you so much as call for help, if I don’t give him the signal, he’ll be in with your wife and daughters. Am I understood?”

The Mayor nodded.

All things considered, for her first attempt at a rescue, it all went rather well.

The Mayor obligingly led her down to the dungeons, and unlocked the cell where Killian was shackled to the wall by his throat and wrists. 

“Trying new things while I’m busy?” she inquired mildly, as the Mayor unlocked the cuffs.

He shrugged as much as he could. “What can I say? I was bored.” He flexed his fingers, shaking some feeling back into his arms. “You took your time, love. Were you going for the big entrance?”

Milah stepped back with a smile. “I didn’t want you to think we cared,” she said. She inclined her head towards the Mayor. “I even brought you the man who sentenced you.”

Killian’s eyes gleamed. “So you did,” he said and brought his arm around in a beautiful right hook that laid the Mayor out on the damp straw. He shook his hand with a grimace. “I may regret that in the morning.”

“Oh, the poor baby,” Milah snorted, jerking her head towards the door. “I didn’t rescue you for you to hang around here and whimper about your sore hand.”

He caught her briefly around the waist. “Have I mentioned lately that I love you?” he said.

Milah both hated and loved the fact he could still make her blush like a milkmaid, and shoved him towards the door. “That can wait,” she said, kicking him firmly on the backside to make him move. “Up the stairs.”

She paused to lock the door after them, leaving the Mayor in the cell. The keys rattled pleasantly in her hand.

Rather than taking the route out of the window, she led Killian through the house, pausing at the foot of the stairs to whistle for Rover. He would head for the window and a quick escape, while she and Killian headed through the kitchen, filling a sack from the pantry as they went. 

The guards were almost all occupied at the treasury, which meant slipping between buildings, they made it back to their ship unnoticed. One by one, the crew appeared too, and before anyone ever found the Mayor, the anchor was weighed and they were on their way out to sea.

They breakfasted on deck, in deference to the Captain’s desire for some fresh air and the sea breeze on his face, and Killian raised his glass. “To the best Captain in all the land,” he declared. Milah socked him in the ribs for such arrogance. He turned an impish look on her. “And, of course, her newly-liberated and long-suffering lover.”

“Wait, what?”

Killian grinned at her. “What? You thought I’d let you stay as First Mate? This is your ship as much as it’s mine, love.”

For once, she didn’t mind the howls and wolf-whistles, as she pulled him closer and kissed him. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

He was late back.

It wasn’t like him. 

Milah didn’t mind it, because usually it meant some ridiculous profession of adoration before he fell asleep while trying to make love to her. Or to the pillows, as usually happened before he dozed off and snored himself senseless.

For him to return from the tavern sober was unusual. Stranger still was that his companions were all stone-cold sober, despite ale stains on their shirts. All of them were pale, and looked shaken.

Killian just smiled and waved away her concerns, pulling her into his arms and kissing her as if he might not have the chance to do it again. He touched her all over, drawing every bit of pleasure from her, and when she found her completion, he propped himself above her, looking down at her, as if burning the image of her into his memory.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, lifting a hand to caress his cheek.

“I was just wondering how it was possible to love you so much,” he said. “Never expected that.”

Her fingers slid to his bare shoulder and back, stroking the fine scars that had been left by a flogging in his youth. “The great Captain Jones, too good to love, hmm?”

“I would have thought too bad to,” he said with a crooked smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He leaned down and kissed her again. “You left so much behind to come with me, Milah. Why did you come?”

“Because,” she murmured, as his kisses moved off her lips, to her jaw, her throat, her shoulder. 

“Just because?”

She tugged his hair, making him lift his head. “Because you saw me. You didn’t just see me as a wife, a mother or a daughter.” She smiled at him, suddenly uncertain. He was never so serious about anything. “Why? Are you getting bored of me?”

“Never,” he whispered, kissing her until all thought of it was pushed from her mind. 

He took her again, drawing her over him, and held her as they moved with the rocking of the ship. It was quieter, more passionate, somehow much more intense than their usual play in the cabin’s ornate bed, and when they were both spent, he held her close, his fingers tangled in her hair. 

“Did something happen in the docks?” she murmured drowsily. “You’re not being your usual cocky self for making me yell like that.”

“Just ran into an old acquaintance,” he replied, his eyes closed. “Gave me food for thought.”

“And thought turned to this?” she murmured, her hand splayed on his bare chest.

One side of his mouth turned up. “Well, I am still a man, love,” he said. “What else could I think about? We’re simple beasts.” 

“I’ll say,” she murmured, lifting herself on her elbow to look down at him. “If something was wrong, you’d tell me?”

He opened his eyes and looked at her with unusual sombreness. “You and the crew have nothing to worry about,” he said. “Just old ghosts bringing back old memories.” He gently nudged her back down into the bed. “Get some sleep.”

She nodded reluctantly, nestling against him.

Somehow, in the night, he managed to slip free.

The first she knew of it was Finbar shaking her awake urgently.

“Captain,” he whispered. “Captain, you have to get up! He’s gone to face him!”

Milah sat up, uncaring that the sheets fell away.” What? Who?”

Finbar nodded in the direction of the docks. “Rumpelstiltskin found us, Captain,” he said, and Milah couldn’t help but laugh.

“Rumpelstiltskin? He’s facing Rumpelstiltskin?” She sprawled back down, pulling the sheets up. “Gods, Finbar, I thought you meant it was something serious.”

“He’s the Dark One, Captain,” Finbar whispered. “Your husband. He’s the new Dark One.”

Milah froze, then shoved off the blankets. “Get my sword,” she said, scrambling from the bed and rushing for her clothes. “He took my life away from me before. He’s not taking this one too.”

“Aye, Captain,” Finbar said.

Milah pulled on her clothing and her boots, her heart pounding. The Dark One was powerful, but if he was still Rumpelstiltskin, then maybe Killian had a chance. If she lost him… if she lost him, she didn’t know what she would do. And that, she knew, was why he didn’t tell her: because if he lost her, he didn’t know what he would do either.

“You stupid, stupid man,” she snarled, as she ran out into the dawn.

Whether it was directed at her husband or Killian, she didn’t know.


End file.
